WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees on Monday released recent testimony that indicates Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the inspiration for a letter from 51 former spy agency leaders claiming The Post reports on Hunter Biden’s laptop could also be Russian. disinformation.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Intelligence Chairman Mike Tuner (R-Ohio) wrote to Blinken that he could expect a legally binding subpoena if he refused to voluntarily comply with their requests for documents.
Morell credited inspiring Blinken’s letter to former acting CIA Director Michael Morell in October 2020, although Morell says Blinken, then Biden’s campaign adviser, didn’t specifically ask him to write down it.
But Jordan and Turner revealed that other signers had described Blinken as asking for the letter of their commission testimony.
“Marc Polymeropoulos, who assisted Mr. Morell in preparing the statement, testified before the committees that Mr. Morell “mentioned to me that somebody in Biden’s world asked to do that,” Jordan and Turner wrote.
“[Polymeropoulos] he elaborated, “Morell told me that somebody in Biden’s world asked for it. And he didn’t tell me who it was or another details.
![The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees have released new testimony that indicates Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the inspiration for a letter from former intelligence agency officials that claimed The Post's reports on Hunter Biden's laptop could be Russian disinformation.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012598480.jpg?w=1024)
“Similarly, former director of national intelligence James Clapper testified before committees that former CIA director John Brennan told him that Tony Blinken had been involved with Michael [Morell] about making a public statement,” Jordan and Turner wrote.
“It is evident from this testimony that contact with Mr. Morell resulted within the drafting and issuance of a public statement intended to present Biden’s campaign a “hooking point,” [President] Trump” in the course of the last presidential campaign. These actions have deprived the American people of the power to make a completely informed decision within the 2020 presidential election.”
The spy letter warned that the report of Hunter’s abandoned laptop “has all of the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The letter, released just before the 2020 election, was quoted by Joe Biden during a recent presidential debate to falsely denigrate The Post’s report as “junk” and a “Russian factory.”
![Chief Justice Jim Jordan and Intelligence Chairman Mike Tuner told Blinken in a letter that he could receive a subpoena if he did not return the requested documents.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000011334477-1.jpg?w=1024)
Blinken denied the request for the letter in a May 1 interview with Fox News journalist Benjamin Hall.
“About that letter, no… it wasn’t my idea.” he didn’t ask for it, he didn’t seek it. And I feel the testimony of former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell confirms that,” Blinken told Hall.
Representatives of the highest US diplomat rejected an earlier request sent to him in April for documents after Morell described Blinken’s key role, congressmen wrote on Monday.
“We received a reply letter out of your attorney on May 4, 2023, which listed several explanation why you suspect you do not want to cooperate and due to this fact you’ve gotten not responded to our request,” Jordan and Turner wrote to Blinken.
“We respectfully request that this material be produced as soon as possible, but no later than 5:00 p.m. on June 26, 2023.” the chairman wrote. “Committees may think about using a compulsory process if those requests remain pending after that date.”
A recent message for Blinken says: “[your] the reply letter contained the straw man argument that “you probably did not solicit this letter”, referring to a public statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Nonetheless, in our letter, we didn’t claim that you just had asked for a press release. As we explained, Committees
the oversight revealed how contact with Mr. Morell “set in motion the events that led to the discharge of the general public statement”.
![Turner and Jordan revealed that some of the signers of the letters said in their testimonies that Blinken had asked them for the letter.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000007999911-1.jpg?w=1024)
“Mr. Morell testified that on the time of your call to him, he was unaware of the Latest York Post article on Hunter Biden and that your assistance “triggered” his intention to make a public statement. The most reasonable conclusion from these facts is that the general public statement on Hunter Biden’s laptop would not have happened if it wasn’t on your contact with Mr. Morell.”
Jordan and Turner added: “Whether you explicitly requested the letter or not, the records of the Committees clearly indicate that you just played a key role in producing this statement.”
The Post’s first laptop bombshell – published five days before the previous spies’ statement – revealed that Vadym Pozharskyi, director of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, sent Hunter an e-mail in 2015 thanking him for “the chance to satisfy your father.” . Biden’s 2019 Claim that he “never spoke” to his son about “his foreign interests”.
Biden’s campaign vaguely denied that the meeting took place. But further reports confirmed key details, including the proven fact that Joe Biden attended a dinner in Washington in 2015 the day before the Burisma executive emailed. A gaggle of his son’s associates also attended, including the Pozharsky trio from Kazakhstan and Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, former first lady of Moscow.
![The letter warned that reporting was on Biden's laptop](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000002133597-1.jpg?w=768)
A 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees claims Baturina paid $3.5 million to a Hunter Biden-linked company in 2014. Baturina is considered one of a dwindling variety of Russian oligarchs who’ve yet to face Biden’s administrative sanctions for Russia’s more than a year-long invasion of Ukraine.
Hunter earned as much as $1 million a 12 months for serving on Burisma’s board from 2014 to 2019, starting when his father guided the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy – and the corporate is at the middle of a recently revealed bribery allegation accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of collective acceptance of $10 million.
President Biden on Thursday called the bribery allegation “malarkey,” but Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealed Monday that a paid FBI informant alleged the existence of 17 recordings of Joe and Hunter Biden related to an alleged bribery conspiracy while then-Vice President Biden was accountable for policy against Ukraine of the Obama administration.
![Joe Biden later quoted this letter in a presidential debate and called The Post about his son's laptop](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012380981.jpg?w=867)
A second October 2020 bombshell from The Post—printed 4 days before the surveillance leaders’ statement—described a communication about Hunter and his uncle Jame Biden’s enterprise with CEFC China Energy, a now-defunct reputable cog within the overseas “Belt and Road” influence campaign in Beijing.
In an email from a laptop on May 13, 2017, it said that the “big guy” would receive 10% of the CEFC deal.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski claims to have discussed the enterprise with Joe Biden in May 2017, and each Bobulinski and one other former Hunter Biden partner, email author James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as ” big guy.”
Hunter and James Biden it grossed $4.8 million with CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, in line with a subsequent Washington Post review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. Some email from October 2017 identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a phone call regarding CEFC’s try to buy American natural gas.
Blinken was Assistant National Security Advisor when Hunter joined Burisma’s board in 2014. He then worked as Assistant Secretary of State for the last two years of the Obama-Biden administration and stated within the Senate on December 22, 2020 that he had no concept that his son then vice-president won the post of Burisma.
Blinken’s wife, White House Secretary of the Cabinet Evan Ryan, corresponded with Hunter Biden concerning the Chinese state dinner and other matters during Biden’s vice presidency.
The State Department declined to comment.